


Keeping All Four Feet On The Ground

by james



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Centaurs, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Magic, Pre-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: Coulson is used to the weird things that happen to them during the course of working for S.H.I.E.L.D.  That doesn't mean he never takes advantage.





	Keeping All Four Feet On The Ground

Phil Coulson was not terribly surprised when the agent in charge of Operation Cascade called him to say that he needed to come down here right away, sir, it's Barton. He was also not terribly reassured when Agent Rochester calmly, but repeatedly said, "He's fine, sir, mostly. We think."

One of the benefits to being so high up the S.H.I.E.L.D. chain was that nobody argued with him when he requisitioned a helicopter and pilot to fly him out to the warehouse where Rochester had said he could find Agent Barton. Whom they were keeping a close eye on, don't worry sir, but he seems perfectly okay. Normally Phil would trust Rochester completely – she was a young black woman who had risen quickly through the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. and while she was a bit younger than most Agents in Charge tended to be, Phil knew she'd grown up with seven younger siblings and a mother who'd worked two jobs to support them all. Rochester took no shit from anybody, kept everyone in line, and was very hard to ruffle.

So Barton was probably fine, if Rochester said so. Probably.

It didn't actually take that long to arrive, though Phil spent the entire flight drumming his fingers on the window and forcing himself not to demand they fly faster. But as soon as they got close enough to the warehouse roof, Phil snapped open his safety harness and jumped out.

There was an agent waiting at the roof access door for him, a young woman who looked like she was all of twelve but was no doubt a legal adult. Did they even still have teenaged Scouts doing internships, Phil spared a thought to wonder, mostly to distract himself from what he was about to find.

He clambered down a long flight of metal stairs and barely had to glance around to spot Clint. He was standing near the center of the empty warehouse, surrounded by what looked like every single agent and staff member on the assignment. Clint appeared to be – yes. Preening for them all. He caught Phil's eye and grinned, widely. "Phil, look!"

As though Phil could have been looking anywhere else. He absently noticed as Agent Rochester appeared beside him and reported, "The field medic says he's fine, and we already sent scans in and Dr. Kassab says he appears fine."

Phil nodded, then blinked as Clint began to do a slow turn to show himself to Phil. All.. all of him. Light tan coat, shiny black hooves, blond tail swishing. Because of course Clint had gotten himself turned into a centaur.

"Isn't this awesome?" Clint said, sounding proud and smug like this was one of his life's dreams finally come true.

Which, considering Barton, wasn't entirely impossible.

"It all works, too!" Clint said happily, as Phil took a step closer. He saw Clint frown, briefly. "Well, we haven't actually tested... not _everything_. I pissed earlier and that all worked. Jackie says getting a sample for the labs wasn't nearly as much fun as it looked, but I can't decide if that means I owe her a pan of caramel walnut brownies or if I'm supposed to never mention it again."

"Both!" Phil heard Agent Jackie Anderson call out from somewhere in the crowd.

Phil took a deep breath and reached out a hand – then stopped himself. "It's not contagious?" he asked Rochester.

"Not so far," Rochester said. "We had a couple volunteers test it, but no one else has been affected." Phil got the distinct impression the volunteers had been disappointed. Then Rochester shrugged. "As far as we can tell, the magic spell hit Barton and turned him into half a horse, and nothing else happened."

"I see," Phil said, trying to remain calm. It didn't help that Clint was still grinning down at him, like this was the best thing to ever happen. Then again, no one was injured or dead, so perhaps that put it into perspective. "Have I ever said how I don't care for magic," he added casually, because honestly, fuck magic.

"This is so much better than last time," Clint said, hooves clopping loudly on the concrete floor as he walked up to Phil, who had to crane his head to look up at Clint's face before dropping his gaze back down to Clint's back. "One-way telepathy sucked so much." Clint shook his head, then said quickly, "Not that – I mean, I'm really glad that you hearing my thoughts finally got us into bed together. But I could have done without all of San Diego knowing what I wanted you to do to my ass."

"True," Phil mused. He was trying to tear his eyes away from Clint's new body and focus on the problem at hand, and found himself failing miserably. He let himself reach out again and touched the soft hair along Clint's.. torso? Back? He had no clue. It was horse hair, definitely, and the body under his hand was warm, and alive, and-- Clint.

He looked up too see Clint pouting. "They won't let me go outside and run."

"Because you'll break your neck," Rochester said with a very unsympathetic-sounding snort. 

"I'm getting better!" Clint protested, and he took a couple of steps away from Phil, turned, then proceeded to walk carefully away from them for several yards. He turned with much more grace than he had had while walking and walked back towards them. Clint wrinkled his nose. "If I don't think about it, it's easier. Come on, Phil, can't you order them to let me out and try running?"

"Isn't there room in here?" Phil asked, then realised he should probably not be encouraging this. 

"I tried, but the concrete feels weird. I want to run on dirt." Clint clomped up to Phil and sort of leaned his upper body down sideways, so he could try to give Phil a beseeching look. He looked ridiculous, and made Phil feel like Clint was going to fall over. "Please, please please please," Clint begged, head nearly upside-down. "I will owe you so many favors, work favors and sex favors and cooking favors and--"

Phil shoved his hands into Clint's face. "Please stop." 

"San Diego is not the only ones who don't want to know what Coulson does to your ass," said Rochester, from just over Phil's shoulder. 

"I wasn't going to go into detail," Clint protested. "Phil knows what I mean." He waggled his eyebrows at Phil, but he was still partly sideways-upside-down and Phil still had his hands covering most of Clint's face – which clearly was not working to make him be quiet. Phil hadn't really expected it to, but for some reason his brain didn't feel like it was firing on all cylinders.

Right. Because Clint was a centaur. Phil pulled his hands away from Clint's face and rubbed one of them over his own, and silently yelled at himself to focus, dammit. 

What came out of his mouth was, "We're in the middle of the city, Barton. How would we even get you to a private field in secret?"

"Uh," Clint straightened up, then waved a hand at the agents standing around them. "We're S.H.I.E.L.D.? We're good at that sort of thing? Please please please," he added, then started dancing from one hoof to another. "Please please please please."

"Why am I going to say yes," Phil moaned at Rochester. She patted him on the arm.

"Because you think he's cute," she said. "I had the same problem when Re'onne was a baby."

Phil sighed, and tried to ignore that warm feeling in his chest when Clint's face lit up in delight and he shouted, "Yes!", pumping his fists into the air. Then Clint lost his balance, left hind leg spilling out from under him, and they discovered the joys of trying to help an uncoordinated, fully-grown centaur to his feet without very much help from the centaur in question.

"And you're sure you still want to go running," Phil asked, dryly, once they finally got Clint standing.

Clint grinned. "Absolutely! I bet I'll be fine at it, once I get in some practise."

Phil sighed again. "Tell me again how long before they think this spell is going to wear off?"

"Twenty-four hours," Rochester told him, which meant – yes, they were going to have to do this now or Clint was going to sulk for the next several years.

Phil was absolutely going to cash in on all those favors, no matter how the rest of the day went. "Do we have a cargo truck handy?" He pulled out his phone to text Fury, letting him know that Phil would be out of the office for the rest of the day. He suspected that Fury already knew.

~~~

Twenty-six hours later, Phil brought Clint home from the last of the medical, scientific, and magical testing that S.H.I.E.L.D. had descended upon his husband. Clint was exhausted, though Phil knew it was mostly from having stayed up all night running around the field and trying to learn how to jump things without breaking a leg or neck, or giving Phil a heart-attack.

The spell had worn off as promised, and Phil was vaguely aware that the magician responsible was under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watchful eye. The boy was still young and his parents had promised to give him a stern talking to about what was considered appropriate experimentation and what was considered reasonable grounds for federal agencies to knock on the door with warrants and un-refusable recruitment spiels.

Right now, all Phil cared about was dumping Clint onto the bed. Clint had stopped trying to pretend he was awake enough to walk right about the time they got through the front door to their apartment. Phil had decided he still liked Clint enough to carry him to bed and not leave him in a pile on the floor by the door, though, as he'd told Clint repeatedly during the trip from the foyer to the bedroom, it was a close call.

Clint just murmured at him as Phil finally dropped him on the mattress and started pulling off his clothes. He was suitably grateful that S.H.I.E.L.D. medical had given Clint slippers and sweats to wear. Phil had, one more than one occasion, had to wrestle Clint out of his tac gear and combat boots. Clint had done the same for him in the past, so while he wasn't complaining, he did appreciate being able to simply remove a pair of slippers and toss them on the floor, and shoving Clint's legs – two, two human legs – under the blanket.

He turned to go grab a quick shower when he heard Clint mumble something. Phil stopped and looked back, and saw Clint, face half-smushed in the pillow, smiling at him. "That was the best," Clint said, slightly more clearly.

"I'll remember that, the next time you complain about going jogging," Phil said. They'd had to finally bribe Clint into stopping, as he'd tried to keep running around, insisting that he wasn't too tired and didn't want to miss any of his centauredness by sleeping through it.

"Turn me into a centaur for my morning jogs, then," Clint said, eyes closed and looking sound asleep already.

Phil laughed. "Would turning you into a centaur get you out of bed in the mornings?"

There was a hum from the bed, then, "No. But I'll make you waffles tomorrow for lunch."

Walking back to the bed, Phil leaned down and gave Clint's cheek a kiss. "I will hold you to that." He waited for a response, then all he heard was Clint's slow breathing. He went and hurried through his shower, feeling rather exhausted himself, because he'd managed to grab a couple hours of sleep last night, but mostly he'd spent a great portion of the past twenty-four hours learning how to ride horseback.

His legs were going to fucking hate him in the morning, but Clint was going to be bringing him breakfast – or lunch – in bed. Possibly for the next several days.

It would be wrong, Phil told himself, to go visit the young magician the next time they had a vacation.

Probably.


End file.
